Prince Harry is in the UK this week and Meghan isn't with him

Prince Harry landed back on British soil this week for the first time in a while, and the story wasn't really about him. It was about who didn't get off the plane.

The Duke of Sussex arrived in the UK on Monday for a five day visit built around the One Year to Go milestone before the Invictus Games Birmingham 2027, plus engagements with WellChild and Scotty's Little Soldiers. He kicked things off at Chatham House on Tuesday for an Invictus Games Foundation conversation. Meghan, Archie and Lilibet stayed home in California.

The reason circling hardest is security. After a reported stand off with RAVEC, the body that manages protective security for the royal family and other prominent figures, the family's travel plans once again split down a line that's become depressingly familiar: Harry goes, Meghan and the kids don't. Conflicting claims even surfaced about whether Harry accepted King Charles's offer to stay at a royal residence, before Buckingham Palace shot that down entirely.

None of this is new, exactly. It's the same security and access saga that's been running since the Sussexes stepped back from royal duties, just wearing this week's outfit. What keeps it interesting is the timing. An Invictus Games milestone is precisely the kind of low conflict, charity forward event that should be an easy win, and the security question still managed to dominate the coverage anyway.

Whether this is the start of a genuine thaw with the family or just Harry doing charity work solo again while everyone reads tea leaves depends on what happens over the next five days, and honestly, probably a lot longer than that.

Watch this space, because every one of these visits gets treated as a referendum on reconciliation whether that's fair or not. This one's no different, it's just got better PR framing around it.